Anger Mode

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  Malin decided not to be alone with the dealer, regardless of who he was. Obviously, it was someone who knew her and Sanna, but someone they didn’t know – unless Sanna was lying. But she never did. She would never lie to Malin.

  If the dealer was that dumb, then that was his problem, Malin reasoned; instead she became curious as to who it could be. Maybe a modelling agent or a talent scout. Malin was not a total disaster face-wise, even though there were those who were cuter. Maybe he had seen her on Facebook.

  “Wossup? Don’t you have any stash at home now?” asked Sanna sourly when she realized that Mustafa was out of marijuana.

  “Well … I was supposed to call him when you guys got here,” explained Mustafa.

  “Well, make the fucking call then. We’re here now,” cried Sanna.

  Mustafa called the dealer, who promised to arrive within half an hour. Malin had abandoned any thoughts about the man and had started to make herself at home in Mustafa’s flat. Just the knowledge that she soon would experience the blissful feeling that the marijuana gave her made her almost euphoric. The last time she had smoked marijuana was at Sanna’s house. Malin had lied to Karin and said that she was watching rented films with Sanna. Sanna’s mother had been at a fiftieth birthday party in Norrtälje and was not coming home until the next day. Mustafa and Habib had come over to Sanna’s early on Saturday evening. Habib had offered free marijuana. It was the first time Malin had tried dope. It was completely fucking fantastic and now she would experience it again. She sank down into the sofa, closed her eyes, and waited for paradise.

  CHAPTER 6

  CLOSING ARGUMENTS WERE finally over and Karin could breathe easily. The press swarmed like flies around dung, because the victim of the shooting was a football player and brother to a high-level CEO of one of the nation’s largest industrial consortiums. The pressure on the jury was as great as the pressure on the prosecutor and barristers. For a moment, Karin felt the urge to flee the courtroom and throw herself into a taxi to Malin, away from this circus and back home to her own problems.

  She went into the coffee room together with the other court officials and sat down at one of the tables, where she pumped coffee from a thermos. Just as she put her coffee cup on the table, her mobile phone vibrated. She saw from the display that it was Malin’s school.

  “Hello, this is Karin,” she answered eagerly, while hurrying into a nearby conference room.

  “It’s Klas Keiier,” replied a man’s voice. “I got your message.”

  “Yes?” said Karin impatiently.

  “Malin hasn’t been at school today,” he stated, in a careless tone.

  Karin suddenly felt a knot in her stomach. Malin had not only played truant from PE. She had not gone to school at all. Thoughts started to spin in her head.

  “Are you still there?” asked the teacher.

  “Has Sanna Setterberg been in school today?” she asked, with an almost desperate voice.

  “No, she hasn’t been in either.”

  Damn it, thought Karin. Then Malin is with Sanna.

  “If Malin or Sanna turn up, could you call me?” asked Karin.

  “Of course,” finished the teacher, indifferently.

  Karin called home, but no one answered. Then she called Malin’s mobile phone. She got no answer there either. She punched up Sanna’s mobile number, but got only the voicemail. Karin felt increasing irritation that Malin was not only destroying her own life but was also in the process of tearing her life down too. How long should she put up with Malin’s behaviour? What was her limit and what would she do when it was reached? Or should she allow her daughter to disappear into the abyss and then pick up the pieces when it was already too late?

  No, she would not let that happen. She would take the rest of the day off. The rock in her gut would not go away and she would not get anything done at work anyway. She had never felt such anxiety before. It was as if her maternal instincts were trying to tell her something.

  She would go home and search for Malin. And when she got hold of her, she would not scold her, nor reproach or threaten her. She would instead suggest that they go out and eat at a restaurant, maybe go to the cinema first. She would try to win back her daughter, the daughter she had been a few years ago, before she had fallen into the company of Sanna and that Mustafa character.

  MUSTAFA LOOKED NONCHALANTLY at Sanna and Malin when the doorbell rang.

  “Open the fucking door. Are you deaf?” Sanna hissed and glared at Mustafa.

  “It’s cool,” Mustafa replied as he went out into the hall.

  Malin felt her pulse quicken. She hooked her arm around Sanna’s.

  Sanna looked at Malin with false confidence. “Are you nervous?” she asked.

  “Dunno,” answered Malin. Yet she was. Nervous as hell.

  Mustafa came into the living room. He went right to the other side of the room, and stood with his back against the window. “It’s cool,” he explained and looked at Sanna and Malin. “He’s just fixing his stuff.”

  In the hallway, there was a rustling sound and heavy bootsteps slowly approached the living room.

  Malin pulled on Sanna’s arm.

  “Stop it!” hissed Sanna as she stared sternly at Malin. Malin trembled when she saw the figure in the doorway. He did not look like a normal dealer. Not like Habib or those she had seen at

  T-Centralen tube station or the city square. There was something strange about the man. Not just the shabby beard and the emaciated face. Even the clothes he was wearing were strange. He wore a long, dark raincoat that fell all the way to a pair of heavy boots. No normal adult went around in those clothes – not at his age anyway. What Mustafa had said was true though. Definitely not a cop. But what was he then? A do-gooder?

  The man went up to Mustafa and took out a small package from his coat pocket. It was carefully wrapped in dark brown tape.

  “Smoke as much as you want,” he said in a cold voice.

  Mustafa studied the package for a few seconds as if he was thinking about something.

  “Are you kidding?” he said after turning it over. “Hell, that’s awesome. I’ll roll a few right away.” Mustafa disappeared into the kitchen.

  The man sat in the armchair and gazed at Malin and Sanna in silence.

  Sanna could not be quiet any longer. “Why did you need me and Malin to be here?” she asked and looked at Malin.

  The man said nothing. All that could be heard in the room was Mustafa rolling joints in the kitchen.

  “Hello, can’t you talk?” asked Sanna.

  Malin pulled Sanna’s arm discreetly and told her to calm down.

  “What is it?” Sanna said and looked at Malin, irritated.

  Malin did not know what she should do or say.

  Suddenly, the man leaned forwards. “You could say that I have a certain relationship with Malin’s mother,” he said and looked at Malin with his deadened eyes.

  Sanna turned to a terrified Malin. “Is that your old man, Janne, or whatever his name is?”

  “Dunno,” whispered Malin in a shaky voice.

  “Is your name Janne?” asked Sanna boldly. “Are you her old man?”

  The man looked at Malin. “No, I’m not her father.”

  “But you’re buddies with her old lady?” Sanna continued.

  “You could say that we have some points of contact,” the man replied.

  “Are you her boyfriend or what?”

  The man did not reply. Instead, he stood up and went to the window.

  “Whatever,” said Sanna petulantly. “Just as long as we get high, you can be friends with whoever the fuck you want to.”

  The room fell silent once more.

  Mustafa came into the living room with some marijuana joints that he had finished rolling. He put them on the coffee table and sat down beside Sanna on the sofa.

  “Let’s fucking do it,” he said and took a spliff. He lit it expertly, sucked in a long drag, and lay back on the sofa.

  Sanna
snatched the lighter from Mustafa’s hand and lit herself a joint. She drew a deep breath and then gave the joint to Malin. Malin hesitated at first. She could not pull her eyes away from the man who was standing in the window and quietly observing them. Finally, she took a deep drag from the spliff. That was the reason she was here. She closed her eyes and held her breath for an instant. Soon, I will be out of here, she thought. Soon, I will be high and then this won’t mean shit. She took a fresh drag and felt the buzz slowly hit.

  “Aren’t you going to smoke too?” Sanna asked, looking at the man.

  The man did not answer. Instead, he opened a window slightly.

  “Fuck, you are one shit-cool Swede,” Mustafa drawled after a short while.

  “Yeah, shit,” continued Sanna, “you’re fucking awesome.”

  Malin felt her tension disappear. The man whom she first thought was unpleasant was no longer so threatening. He looked a little weird, but no more than that.

  With blurry eyes, she saw Mustafa take Sanna by the hand and stagger into the bedroom. The door slammed with a bang. She tried to say something to them, but her mouth would not obey her. It was as if it no longer belonged to her. After a while, she could no longer sit upright on the sofa. Instead, she lay down. The spliff slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor. She was on her way towards the ultimate nirvana.

  He observed the girl who lay on the sofa, filled with her urgent hunger to flee reality. So young, yet still willing to descend into degradation and pawn her future.

  She would now have been roughly the same age as the girl on the sofa. Maybe she would have been at school, immersed in study as he himself had once been. Ambitious and with a scholastic mind and talent that lit up each day. She would have spent a lot of time in the stable, training for some competition and grooming her horse down to the smallest detail. She would have been a reflection of himself: a perfectionist with a will as strong as steel.

  For a brief moment, he doubted whether what he was doing was really the right thing. But then came the despair and, after that, the hate slowly returned. It was the girl’s mother he wanted to hurt. Now she would know the true meaning of loss. The girl lying on the sofa was simply a tool, an instrument he was forced to sacrifice for his mission.

  This was a balancing act that required a lot of patience. So many factors could go wrong: the timing, the strength of the dose, the confrontation.

  But he had patience. A deadly amount of patience.

  He looked at his watch. The time had come.

  KARIN WENT STRAIGHT from the courthouse to Sanna’s home address in Vällingby. She was taking a chance that Sanna’s mother was at home. Even better, she hoped to find her own daughter, but neither Malin nor Sanna were there, and Sanna’s mother was as uninterested in her own daughter as Karin was in listening to Sanna’s mother gossiping. Just because the woman was an alcoholic and unemployed did not mean that she should let her daughter fend for herself, thought Karin angrily, when Sanna’s mother closed the door in her face.

  She had not found a single clue that took her closer to finding Malin. She called both Malin and Sanna’s mobile phones several times, only to get their voicemail messages.

  She had no telephone number for Mustafa. She only knew of him by name. She blamed herself for not having asked Malin for it earlier. Now she knew nothing. She had searched through Malin’s room not knowing what she was searching for, and she had called parents and classmates from the school register. That didn’t give her anything either. If Malin was not back home by ten o’clock this evening, she would contact the police. She knew that the police would not file a missing persons’ report until twenty-four hours had passed, but she persuaded herself that they could at least keep their eyes open. Her throbbing anxiety had developed into stomach pains. Cinema and restaurant visits with Malin now seemed as distant as her good humour.

  KARIN TRIED TO eat that afternoon. The food did not taste good. After a few bites of yesterday’s leftovers, she threw the food in the rubbish bin. She tried a sandwich, but that was not edible either. Even the wine that she hoped would take the edge off her anxiety was unpalatable. Everything tasted metallic, nauseating – everything except the tap water.

  The anxiety within her gradually turned into a rage that grew in proportion to the time that passed without any communication from Malin. After a while, Karin started to talk to herself. At first, it was more of a mutter, with some swear words directed at Sanna and her drunk of a mother. Later, it progressed to soliloquies, in which she loudly and clearly either berated or entreated Malin for one thing or another. It was comforting to talk loudly to herself, to drown out the voices in her head, which all the while were growing stronger. But finally, not even that helped. An unbearable pain cut through Karin’s head. Something was happening to her. What it was, she did not know, but she felt like a pressure cooker that was slowly overheating, and the only way out was to …

  She could not think like that. It was unacceptable to have these thoughts, but still she did and she became confused, terrified by them.

  Then a sudden, stabbing pain, and she spun around with a scream. The spice rack flew to the floor and glass from the little spice bottles shattered all over the kitchen floor.

  “Damn it!” she screamed and grabbed her head. The voices became louder and louder. If only she had the kid in front of her now. God knows what she would do to her.

  CHAPTER 7

  MALIN SLOWLY OPENED her eyes. She was freezing, so much so that her teeth chattered. One knee was sore, and she lay on cold, damp grass surrounded by thick bushes. Her trousers and jacket were muddy and she found it difficult to get her bearings. The bushes were dense and stretched high above her. Even if she stood on tiptoe, she could not see over, much less through, the bushes. She could not for the life of her understand how she had ended up here.

  The only thing she remembered was that Sanna and Mustafa had disappeared into the bedroom. And, of course, that bearded dealer, the guy who was so unpleasant. He was also there when they sat in Mustafa’s living room. Everything after that was obscured by darkness.

  Malin became angry. She felt betrayed and abandoned by Sanna and Mustafa.

  Because they had done … what? Why was she really angry? Because she had ended up here. How had she, in fact, come to this place? She suddenly realized that she perhaps had been raped. An icy feeling seized her. What if that dealer had done something to her? Laid over her, drooling and panting like some fucking animal? She checked. Her jeans were properly buttoned and she felt no pain in her crotch at least. Probably a good sign. She had to get home and shower. Everything was so fucked up.

  Malin fumbled for her mobile phone and found it in her jacket pocket. She did not usually keep it there. She was going to call Sanna, but the display was as blank as her head was right now. Presumably, the battery was dead. Despite that, she tried to restart it by repeatedly pressing the button. The phone remained dead.

  “Fucking hell!” she swore angrily and threw away the phone. Now everything was against her. She stood up carefully and limped out between two bushes without picking up her mobile phone. It was dark and she had difficulty seeing.

  A two-storey block of flats towered in front of her, and a lamp was alight over the basement door to the building. By the side of the door, a bike stood chained fast. It looked familiar. The bike was hers.

  Limping and swearing, Malin made her way around the building and in through the door at the front. There were seven steps up to the flat. She would be able to manage those, in spite of the terrible pain from her damned knee.

  Mrs Ekblom’s little chihuahua barked as soon as she came into the stairwell. The dog that Malin normally loved was no longer cute. The barking and whining behind the door became an intolerable noise in Malin’s ear. She hated the disgusting little hairball that just drooled and whined. Malin spat on Mrs Ekblom’s door and swore at the dog to shut the fuck up.

  At last, she was standing on the last step and reaching for the
door handle, but she stopped herself when she suddenly started hearing vague voices inside her own head. Only faint whispers, but they spoke to her.

  What the fuck was going on?

  Suddenly, a pain started to grow deep inside her head. The whispers changed to distinct voices that talked over each other. She tried to fight it, but she was filled with an enormous rage. The angrier she became, the more the pain subsided.

  Sanna is a fucking loser and Mum is a bloody whore who should leave me the fuck alone.

  She tore open the flat door.

  IT WAS TEN past nine in the evening when Karin heard the sound of the front door opening. She jumped up from the sofa and went out to the hallway where she met Malin, who was muddied and limping, when she stepped through the door.

  Karin advanced with her hands firmly on her hips.

  “Where have you been?” she began in a shrill voice.

  Malin did not answer and ignored Karin’s glare. She slowly slinked towards her room, limping along the hallway wall. Her eyes were as black as coal.

  “Are we having difficulty finding an answer?” Karin shouted and grabbed Malin’s shoulder. She felt the rage spread to every muscle.

  “Get off me!” yelled Malin, trying to get free from Karin’s grip.

  “You’re going to tell me where you’ve been,” Karin repeated as she grabbed both of Malin’s shoulders with her hands. She wanted to throw the kid against the wall.

  Malin exploded and slapped Karin’s hands away. “Get off me, you fucking whore!” she screamed. “Leave me alone.”

  “I’m not going to. That’s over with now!” Karin screamed back and took fresh hold of Malin, who hit her hands away.

  “Don’t touch me,” Malin said and stared hard at Karin with her coal-black eyes.

  “Don’t you understand what I said, you fucking bitch? You’re nothing to do with me!”

  Karin shook with rage. Tears welled up as she grappled with her daughter’s arms.

  “Bloody brat. You’re not going to destroy anything anymore,” she yelled, as her rage mixed with despair and fear. Her tears blinded her.